Hillsong church, and why I'm no longer protestant...

[Legal_Eagle]

Even so, the Mass was a thousand times better than anything my man T.D. Jakes could sweat out. When that nice old priest held the Host up for us to see, we knew that Jesus was there among us.

Isn’t it amazing how that works. When we let go of our need to be stimulated and entertained, and just let God “do his thing” in our souls we find a peace and a fulfillment that no amount of “great old style preaching” can ever match.

Jesus doesn’t care if the priest can’t preach, or the choir can’t sing, or if the Church has green-and-gold carpet. He can reach us if we’re open.

 

[dlguru]

im a fan of hillsong
might not attend their services but like the music
would prefer my kids listen to hillsong music in the car than secular garbage on the radio

 

[abucs]

I’m a fan of the simple mass too. The 6:45 am mass without the music is a good place to concentrate on the liturgy. Each to their own i guess.

I’ve never gone to a Protestant church service. The only ones i’ve seen are on TV but i don’t know how representative they are. I guess Anglicans and Lutherans would be similar to Catholic.

Following on from Jeanette’s comments though about what makes a good Protestant service - i guess if they see Catholics praying to, speaking about and singing to Mary, you can see where the idea of Catholics worshipping Mary might come in.

For some Protestants i guess, singing to, praying to and talking about Jesus would be seen as ‘the worship’.

 

[kalt]

Yes, you reminded me of one of the things that started irritating me about Protestant worship back in the 80s just before I went for my swim in the Tiber.

This afternoon I visited a local parish that had an incredibly “boring” Mass even by Catholic standards. The music was terrible, the elderly priest was feeble, the church was appointed in that 60s hippie-ish style that went out of style already (thank God, and good riddance!). Even so, the Mass was a thousand times better than anything my man T.D. Jakes could sweat out. When that nice old priest held the Host up for us to see, we knew that Jesus was there among us.

It’s about the truth of the Mass, not about the appeal of the celebrant.

That priest might never make the Protestant Billboard Top 40, and that makes no difference.

 

[Cat]

We live in a diocese where many of the priests are excellent “preachers.” If there were a “preaching” event in the Olympics, these guys would earn berths and possibly medals.

I always appreciate the opportunity to hear them speak longer than a few minutes, e.g., when they are speaking at a mission or conference or seminar, and sometimes on the radio.

Our bishop (Thomas Doran) is a wonderful preacher! Back when I was Protestant, I would listen to his weekly radio show just to hear him preach. Now when I hear him speak, I hang on his every word. It is obvious that the man is an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I suspect that the good preaching is because many of the towns and cities in our diocese are within easy driving distance of the Willowcreek church, and many of its megachurch spinoffs. In other words, there is lots of “competition,” and the Catholic churches will lose the competition if their priests are poor or even adequate preachers. So they are very well-trained and prepared by the bishop to “preach.”

The “excitable” style of evangelical preaching is not the only style of evangelical preaching. I grew up in churches that were all about “three point sermons,” with lots of alliteration (repeated occurence of a consonant at the beginning of a phrase, e.g., the Presence of Christ, the Pleasure of Christ, and the Power of Christ.). Most of the time the sermons were “quiet,” as the shouting was considered unseemly and emotional hype. My brand of evangelical was anti-emotions, and followed Dr. Bill Bright’s “train” of “Facts, Faith, Feelings.” Feelings were always the “caboose” of the train, not the engine. And the Bible was always at the center of a sermon. Usually the pastor carried an open Bible as he preached. (And we didn’t have female pastors or preachers in our denomination–that was considered un-Biblical.)

BTW, from what I have read, many Catholic saints of the past were great preachers. St. Anthony of Padua comes to mind. People would stand in the open air to hear him preach for hours at a stretch. He had the entire Bible memorized and his sermons were all based on the Bible. So apparently the evangelicals don’t have a lock on the “Bible preaching/2-hour sermon.” As usual, CATHOLICS invented it, and the Protestants just borrowed it!

 

[ahiram_saldana]

Wow… Judge judge judge … Do you make a difference in the community? god had used them in great way Hillsong united think about this If god wasn’t happy with what they do god would of done somthing about it the king of king the lord of lord god all mighty wouldn’t let this happen but he does and who are all of yall to say what’s wrong yall don’t even worship the right god yall worship saints how dare you say this thing… god almighty take control in this world let the blind see the truth god you know what you do in us … Matthew 7:15

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

I’m talking about you CATHOLICS…

May god bless you all

 

[FabiusMaximus]

Given that most of the Evangelicals have been quite respectful of the Catholic Mass, could you Catholics perhaps provide the same courtesy?

Yes this is a Catholic forum, I understand that, but a little more respect for Evangelicalism would be appreciated.

 

[acarlson]

Wow… Judge judge judge … Do you make a difference in the community? god had used them in great way Hillsong united think about this If god wasn’t happy with what they do god would of done somthing about it the king of king the lord of lord god all mighty wouldn’t let this happen but he does and who are all of yall to say what’s wrong yall don’t even worship the right god yall worship saints how dare you say this thing… god almighty take control in this world let the blind see the truth god you know what you do in us … Matthew 7:15

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

I’m talking about you CATHOLICS…

May god bless you all

I would look to have a little more charity towards Catholics if I were you, especially on a forum about Catholicism.

Though I will agree, while I have my own qualms about the content of Protestant worship services, I do think we should try to be a little more charitable.

 

[Roman_Catholic_1]

Wow… Judge judge judge … Do you make a difference in the community? god had used them in great way Hillsong united think about this If god wasn’t happy with what they do god would of done somthing about it the king of king the lord of lord god all mighty wouldn’t let this happen but he does and who are all of yall to say what’s wrong yall don’t even worship the right god yall worship saints how dare you say this thing… god almighty take control in this world let the blind see the truth god you know what you do in us … Matthew 7:15

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

I’m talking about you CATHOLICS…

May god bless you all

What an ironic post.

May the true God bless you.

 

[cajunhillbilly]

I have heard good sermons from Protestant and Catholic sources. Plus have heard mediocre from both. I do NOT see a good sermon as something that “moves me” emotionally per se, though a good sermon will do that, but as one that presents Christ to the hearers and truly draws them closer to God in every way, and not just emotionally. I think in the Catholic church there have been great preachers and there have been great preachers in the Protestant traditions. Lets not downgrade anyone please.

 

[CompSciGuy]

I think the best homily I ever heard was less than 30 seconds. It was summer in Omaha, NE, the air conditioner was broken and it’s was already 80 degrees outside at 9am.

Father came up and said “If you think this is Hot, imagine Hell” and we started the Creed.

You might say he was copping out because of the heat, but I still think of that quote, and it keeps me sane. No matter how hot the situation gets, I can turn to God and it’s all right.

How funny, the exact same thing happened at my parish in College Station, TX, the AC was broken and the summers here are closer to 101. Our homily was only worded slightly different: “It’s hot in here, but it’s hotter in hell. So shape up.”

 

[Bob_Crowley]

I’m a Catholic convert from Protestantism. My first protestant pastor was an outstanding preacher, and his messages probably went from 15 to 20 minutes. To be honest, I’ve found the Catholic homilies a let down in comparison, short, tepid, and while they may be to the point, they could do with a bit more ‘oomph’.

On the other hand, I get irritated sometimes at Protestant attempts to “spiritualise” the service as though the worship leader can somehow invoke God’s presence in the congregation by musical manufacture (I attend a protestant church monthly for family reasons).

I’ve never been to Hillsong. I know it’s in Sydney somewhere, but that’s about it. I have heard a lot of Hillsong songs (they all seem to have a similar underlying harmony method, regardless of who wrote them). Some of them are excellent, mind you. And they do a lot in trying to get Christians to develop their creativity. Nothing wrong in that.

I suppose in the end, the best attitude is to take whatever spiritual nourishment is going. But I also think that the Catholic Church could do a lot more to develop it’s priest’s preaching skills. Even one priest said to me when I spoke to him about the weak homilies, (and he was one priest who could string together a reasonable homily, possibly because his speciality was medieval church history, and historians can generally tell a story), “The church has struggled with that for a long time”.

I think we can do better, even if some Protestants go too far the other way.

 

[krahnicles]

I don’t like receiving the gospel and other readings/teachings from the bible in the middle of some gigantic 2 hour tirade which can oft fudge the simple message the writers tried to get across. i lkike the Straight up approach… the Catholic way of doing it.

This part makes it sound like you’re choosing your place of worship based on personal preference. Your likes and dislikes happen to match up with something like a Mass rather than something like a Sunday morning sermon, so…that’s why you tune in to channel 10 a bit earlier.

Is that really what it’s all about? Is that really why you’re Catholic? Or is it more of an incidental detail that you enjoy in the midst of all the real reasons why you’re there?

 

[krahnicles]

I suppose in the end, the best attitude is to take whatever spiritual nourishment is going. But I also think that the Catholic Church could do a lot more to develop it’s priest’s preaching skills. Even one priest said to me when I spoke to him about the weak homilies, (and he was one priest who could string together a reasonable homily, possibly because his speciality was medieval church history, and historians can generally tell a story), “The church has struggled with that for a long time”.

This looks interesting. If you’ll be seeing that priest in the near future, do you think you could ask him to recommend a good historian who tells that story?

 

[ConsciousCoward]

How funny, the exact same thing happened at my parish in College Station, TX, the AC was broken and the summers here are closer to 101. Our homily was only worded slightly different: “It’s hot in here, but it’s hotter in hell. So shape up.”

Are you an Aggie, or did you just grow up in College Station? I’m at A&M now, so you know I just had to comment. I’ve been meaning to go to St. Mary’s one Sunday simply because for all the research I’ve done, I’ve never attended a Mass. I’ll tag along with my friend one of these days.

Anyway, I don’t understand all the criticism flowing towards sermons.The purpose of a sermon is to guide and teach the congregation with the intention of building disciples, or at least that is the proper intention. A large part of being a Christian is living an active faith, knowing not only what you believe but why you believe it, and being able to apply that faith to your life. That’s why so many sermons are life-lessons oriented; the pastor is looking to encourage a Christ-centered lifestyle, and frankly, there’s a lot to that.

Granted, there are some pastors that just go on and on, repeating themselves and not building up their congregation at all. There is a certain degree of focus that must be present in a sermon for it to be successful, and I’ve seen many pastors (mostly Baptist, though for fear of generalizing I’ll add that I’ve seen Lutheran and Presbyterian and Methodist pastors do it too) lose sight of that in favor of filling up a time-slot. The other disclaimer is that there are several churches, usually larger ones, that focus on getting a reaction from the audience rather than building their faith. It becomes a show, and that’s never good. I’ve been lucky enough to not fall into a church like that.

Overall, though, I greatly appreciate the structure of the typical Protestant worship service, both traditional and contemporary. I’ve found them to be incredibly useful for reinforcing my faith and encouraging me to keep the focus of my life, not just my Sundays, on Christ, and also to have my actions, speech, and everything else reflect that.

 

[someguy14]

Instead of protestant or catholic or mormon or lds, or blah blah blah, you should be focused on serving God alone.